Marquee Content Project Manager (Remote)

Ballotpedia seeks a full-time, 100% remote Marquee Content Project Manager who will report to its Marquee Managing Editor and assist them, as an internal team lead, with project management and team supervision. They will also be responsible for content creation and writing for a select suite of Ballotpedia content products, including Marquee coverage articles and newsletters.

A successful Marquee Content Project Manager will be passionate about Ballotpedia's mission and the role the Marquee team and the Editorial Department plays in helping to achieve that mission. Overtime, Ballotpedia's Marquee Content Project Manager will demonstrate an understanding of the team's core mission and of the distribution of team responsibilities and areas of coverage.

An ideal Marquee Content Project Manager will be highly organized and possess strong writing and interpersonal skills, with a knack for coaching and providing feedback to junior writers and fellow team members. They will be keen to identify and suggest process improvements and opportunities to expand coverage. They will love creating simple and elegant structures for article and research/project maintenance.

Responsibilities

As the Marquee Content Project Manager, you will:

• Content Creation & Writing (about 20% of the time)
  • Manage a limited number of assigned articles with timely updates in line with expected quality level and Ballotpedia writing guidelines.
  • Participate in drafting and editing of newsletter products.
  • Conduct media interviews and webinars on marquee coverage topics when requested.
  • Periodically work with writing coaches to constantly improve editing, writing, and coaching skills.
  • Cover assigned breaking news and election night shifts outside of regular working hours, as needed.
  • Learn and master Ballotpedia's taxonomy of bias and Ballotpedia's Style Guide (based on the AP Stylebook).

• Project Planning (about 40% of the time)
  • Facilitate execution of team priorities through management of daily scrum, sprint planning, and sprint review calls, and elimination of obstacles and impediments.
  • Identify and suggest process improvements for increased productivity and higher quality products.
  • Recommend opportunities for new marquee coverage as circumstances dictate.

• Supervision (about 40% of the time)
  • Supervise quality of new products, articles, newsletters, and more.
  • Ensure the status of projects is clearly communicated by submitting weekly progress reports in any assigned areas.
  • Maintain and update weekly and monthly tracking to monitor the status of the team as a whole.
  • Create documentation to standardize and improve team practices, and lead team training and re-training sessions as needed.
  • Ensure that the managing editor and team members are aware of project progress by attending scrum meetings or regularly updating Asana tasks.
  • Participate in regular monthly article grading.
  • Work to facilitate other team members' completion of day-to-day tasks by answering questions and offering support.

Qualifications

What we look for in an ideal Marquee Content Project Manager:

• A demonstrated passion for Ballotpedia's mission.
• They will also be passionate and knowledgeable about politics and the United States political system. If they weren't following these stories for Ballotpedia, they'd be doing it on their own time.
• Superb organizational skills and a focus on detail, with prior project planning experience.
• A love for process excellence. They enjoy organizing their own lives and the world around them.
• They are a problem solver. They can act decisively and guide a team in overcoming challenging obstacles.
• Experience working in databases, with spreadsheets and project management platforms.
• Experience in writing and/or editing, with professional or academic writing experience an additional benefit.
• They will possess sound judgment when reviewing content with the keen ability to identify the stories that matter.
• They can look at our content from different points of view. They understand how customers with different political beliefs, needs, or priorities would perceive our content.
• A desire to work collaboratively with Ballotpedia staff from multiple departments.
• They can deliver critical feedback. They view it as an opportunity to coach for future success.
• Comfort seeking and responding to feedback.
• A drive for innovation and flexibility and an ability to identify and solve problems proactively.
• Self-awareness and a drive toward constant improvement.

Environment

The Marquee Content Project Manager will work remotely from their home location. All Ballotpedia staff work remotely. To join Ballotpedia, you must have a computer with Internet access.

Ballotpedia uses the Google Suite (Gmail, Google Calendar, Drive and more), Slack, and Asana to accomplish our goals. Some familiarity with the Google Suite, Slack, and Asana are helpful.

Ballotpedia has a flexible work environment, BP Flex, in which every employee enjoys unlimited vacation and flexibility in scheduling. Each employee will be oriented to the principles of Ballotpedia's flexible environment during new employee training.

Compensation

The starting salary range for the Marquee Content Project Manager is $55,000-65,000 per year. In addition to base salary, the Marquee Content Project Manager will be eligible for performance-based bonuses. Additionally, Ballotpedia offers an annual benefits stipend equivalent to $8,000 that is paid out in equal increments in each paycheck once an employee becomes benefits eligible.

The stipend may be used to pay for a full benefits package, including health, vision, and dental insurance; retirement accounts; and more. If benefits are not elected, the stipend is taxed as regular income and added to salary.

To Apply

To apply please visit our job opportunities page and complete an application on our website. Please attach the following in PDF format if possible:

• resume
• cover letter detailing your interest in Ballotpedia's mission, this position, and highlighting applicable experience that uniquely qualifies you for this role
• Neutral writing sample (under five pages)

Note: please include this in the same file as your cover letter

Please ensure that either your resume or your cover letter include your current address.

About Ballotpedia

Ballotpedia is a collaborative team of fast learners and creative problem solvers who are eager to work hard to make the world a better place. We believe the world will be a better place if every citizen has access to information to make informed decisions about their vote in every election in which they are eligible to vote: primary, general, and special elections; federal, state, and local offices.

We work diligently to present the available information about elections, candidates, judges, ballot measures, policies, and more in a way that enables our readers to vote with confidence and to act as engaged citizens outside of the polling booth.

Ballotpedia readers, like Ballotpedia staff, are special people.

When we launched in 2007, we did not go out of our way to seek new readers. Starting with our small team of visionary idealists, nerds, and aspiring political journalists, we just wrote the best unbiased online articles we could, especially about ballot measures. Readers found those articles in droves. It turns out there was an unclaimed audience out there-people who wanted straightforward facts about political issues, and were willing to read at length instead of just scanning the headlines.

"If you build it, they will come:'' our readers came to our neutral oasis in growing numbers; we've had many millions of lifetime pageviews, we reached nearly half of all voters in 2020, and, in the month surrounding the November 2020 election, we were the 77th most-visited website in the U.S.

We've come to realize that we need to meet our readers where they are. In doing so, over the past five years, we've grown our email newsletter program from infancy to include more than 2,000,000 opt-in subscribers with more than a dozen newsletters to choose from. We are working in numerous ways to help put our neutral information in front of people at the times when they most need it, including on mobile phones while you're standing in the voting booth. We firmly believe that our readers, and the mindset we help them cultivate, are essential in a world where too many others are fighting to get us all addicted to sensational posts and the irrational decisions they foster.

If this is a mission you'd be willing to work hard to achieve, and if this is a team you'd be willing to work hard with-JOIN US.